Practical Joke

Practical Joke

Tonight:
Keith slouched through the school's empty carpark. He could barely believe how little had changed since he had left: handrails still the same dark green, strips torn off by kids with brand new compass sets or dissection kits to expose the multicolored layers of paint jobs past. He couldn't be sure in the fading light but he thought he could even see the oil stain that marked Mr. Ainsley's parking space right near the front doors, a space reserved by years of persistent griping and cheap mechanics. A chill ran down Keith's spine as he passed, as if the old teacher was about to step out of the building right now and dress him down for trespassing. Shrugging off the feeling he hurried on towards the main building.

Before:
"Check it out man, this is gonna be great." Johnny laughed has showed the Keith the contraband smuggled in the bottom of his schoolbag: a dirty potato. As they hurried down the stairs and through the car park Johnny appeared to trip and fall, only Keith saw him jam the potato hard into the exhaust of a parked car as he pushed himself up. Walking on as if nothing had happened Johnny slowed and pulled Keith to the side as they passed out the school gates. Circling the fence that surrounded the school grounds they found a point where they could see the sabotaged car while being well hidden by the flowering frangipani trees.
They weren't waiting long when Miss Drover, an english teacher who avoided any and all extra-curricular commitments and was always the first out of the building after the students practically ran down the stone steps and threw her meager paperwork into the passenger seat of the potatoed car. The two boys could read her body language from across the grounds: first relief as she turned the ignition the first time, then growing frustration as the motor turned and spluttered but wouldn't catch. Keith couldn't help himself, his laugh rang out across the parking lot, Miss Drover's head turned automatically with that sixth sense granted to anyone who has to deal with young boys for any length of time but the boys were well away, running first and then slouching slowly toward home with the feigned innocence that only the truly blameless use to cover their guilt.

Tonight:
The window's latch, it's teeth worn down by years and use and decreased funding gave way with a sharp snap and the window swung gently open. Keith paused for a moment, sure that someone in the nearby houses must have heard him, but there were no shouts, no lights flicked on: the good people of Wilbury slept on. After a couple of minutes he breathed a sigh of relief and eased himself through the library window and dropped gently to the floor, choosing to jump rather than risk one of the shelves taking his weight. Things really hadn't changed if they never even bothered to fix that latch he mused. Not that Keith was complaining, if he'd had to break the glass to get the window open he almost surely would have attracted attention and he needed time if he was going to do this properly. It made him feel better somehow, justified: If the school board could be allowed to forget this place then he should too.
Not daring a flashlight he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark of the moonlit room, walking through the shelves of books he slowly began to make out the signs at the ends of the rows: T... U...V... W.. and there it was.

Before:
"The color purple," Keith stammered at the front of his english class, "is about uh.. a woman named Kelly..." after a couple of minutes of stutters and improvisations Mr Ainsley cut him off, "That will be quite enough Keith. Now you've obviously read some of the book, or at least the Cliff's Notes. Unfortunately it also seems you weren't able to tell the difference between copying other people's reports on the assigned book and let's see," he consulted his notes, " 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'A Tale of two cities' and I think there was a reference to 'Purple Haze' somewhere at the end there but I can't be sure because I don't think you actually understood what the song was about. Luckily you'll have plenty of time to catch up on your reading in detention with me this afternoon and for the rest of the week."
"But sir..."
"Don't try it. Now, next... uh, Emily...."
Keith returned to his desk muttering angrily.
"Sucks man," muttered Johnny, "Could be worse though, I got two weeks."
"You? What for? You're not even giving your report until tomorrow."
Johnny looked bashful.
"Oh... potato?"
"Yeah... Drover was on the look out for me after the other afternoon, totally busted."
"Hey!" Shouted Mr. Ainsley, "Keep quiet unless you both want another week."

Tonight:
Keith was almost through shelves K through X. At first he'd tried stacking the books in an orderly rectangle but it had started to look worryingly coffin-shaped and was starting to tip over anyway so in the end he'd settled for just keeping them all in a largish pile with all the copies of the 'The Color Purple' he could find on top. He tried not to think about where he'd put the pile, pretending to himself he'd chosen at random. Pretending he wasn't terrified of seeing a stain he knew wasn't there anymore.
He heaved one last armful onto the pile. That should be enough.

Before:
As the library clock ticked past 3:25 Johnny caught Keith's eye and sighed dramatically for probably the fifth time in the last two minutes.
"This sucks." Johnny muttered behind his book.
"Yeah, I guess." Keith replied without looking up.
"I can't wait till he lets us out of here."
"Yeah, I guess."
"What's with you?" asked Johnny more loudly, disgusted at his friend's apparent apathy to their predicament.
"Nothing man, I'm peachy," Keith drawled out of the corner of his mouth, he'd been watching a prison movie the other night and been practicing his gangster accent ever since, "looking forward to going home. 'Specially looking forward to Ainsley trying to go home."
Johnny frowned with confusion, "Wha..."
"Quit the chatter you two, get back to your reports." Mr. Ainsley called from the chair behind the loans desk.
Johnny and Keith settled down and joined their fellow detainees in making their best pretence at hard work, trying to emit an aura of intense scholarship that suggested a boy should be rewarded by, say, the reprieve of an unjust sentence. Mr. Ainsley was tragically unreceptive to their plight though, his attention was divided between the racing pages and fidgeting with the box of Pall Malls in his coat pocket. After another ten minutes of shared tedium he stood up and announced, "I'm going to step outside for a moment to uh, get some air. I'll be right outside the door so don't insult me by trying to sneak off. I'll be checking your work when I get back so I expect to see progress from all of you."

Without a teacher's shadow darkening the room the detainee's moods lifted immediately.
"So what were you saying before about Ainsley?" Johnny asked, dumping his pencil on the desk.
"I gave him a little present for putting me in here," said Keith, now deep in his own jailbird fantasy, "thought I'd show him what happens to snitches."
"What?"
"That potato trick," Keith sighed, dropping the accent in the face of an unappreciative audience, "I did it to his car this morning on my way to class. Shoved it in with a stick too, real deep. Even if he figures it out I bet he won't get it out for ages, maybe ever."
"Heh, sweet."
"Yeah I thought so." Keith smiled basking in the glow of having someone admire his daring and cunning.
"I'm not going to hang around for it though," Johnny continued, not one to be outdone, "I'm out of here before Ainsley comes back."
"How're you going to do that dumbass? He's right outside the door."
"That window up there, the catch never locks properly. Higgins showed it to me, he said he snuck in her last month and nicked some stuff the librarian confiscated off him."
"Higgins is full of it."
"Nah, straight up. Anyway, I'm out of here. I figure no way Ainsley's going to give me more detention if it means he has to explain that he lost me in the first place. It's a thing, Catch 42."
"You're an idiot, he's going to completely nail you."
"Yeah, well, whatever. Enjoy detention."
Without another word Johnny pushed his chair out and moved over to the window with exaggerated sneaky steps. Gripping the upper shelves he slowly eased his weight onto the lower shelves and tried to scramble quietly to the top. As he reached for the window latch Keith swore he saw the shelf detach from it's bracing and leave Johnny's foot hovered in the air for a moment. Then, too quickly to see it happen, Johnny was on the floor. Blood smeared the deadly sharp corner of the opposite shelf and a dark stain was spreading across the floor from a gash in his head.
Mr. Ainsley had rushed back in at the sound of the crash, a still lit cigarette falling from his fingers. The world turned to a blur around Keith as the teacher interrogated the boys and gave out orders: What had happened? No it didn't matter. The school nurse would have gone home but he could drive to the hospital, it would be quicker than an ambulance. Someone should call emergency and let them know they were coming. Two of you come and help me carry him to my car, hold his head gently.

Tonight:
They had cremated Johnny, Keith could still remember the funeral. They'd given him a seat up the front with family, Johnny's mother said it was only right since they were such close friends.
It was what she had said after that haunted him though, the Brownian motion of family and mourning meant they were alone together for a moment as they left the church and all she could talk about was how she just wished she could stop being angry at Johnny. She said she just couldn't understand why he would be so stupid to vandalize Mr. Ainsley's car after he was already given detention for doing it once, why did he have to vandalize the car that could have saved his life if it had started, if he had got to the hospital sooner.
That was the word she used, 'vandalize'. In a distant way Keith thought it seemed extreme to describe a practical joke but that was what she kept saying: "Why did Johnny vandalize that car?". Keith didn't correct her.
Keith stared down at the pile of books, his own little funeral pyre. Stared through it at the stain that wasn't there anymore. He took the box of matches from his pocket.

Later:
"Keith are you even listening to me?"
"What Mom?"
"I said... oh never mind. What are you gawking at anyway?" squinting through the SUV's side window Barbara realized without thinking she had taken the route to her son's old primary school, what was left of it at least. Her mother's intuition told her to tread carefully. Keith had was nearly at the end of high school when the fire had claimed the aging buildings but it had hit him hard just the same. She'd tried to bring it up a couple of times, the story and a half hearted hunt for the arsonist had made the rounds in the nightly news and had a bit of life in the local paper for a week or two afterwards but Keith had always retreated into himself and not wanted to speak about it. It was a sign that her little boy was growing up she decided, he was trying to be a man and deal with having to leave his past behind. She decided to try and reach out and acknowledge what he was feeling.
"It's such a shame, a lot of memories went up with that place."
"Yes," replied Keith, "They did."